Obama leads Romney, negatives of both way up — poll

President Obama enjoys a six-point lead over Republican nominee-in-waiting Mitt Romney according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, with a nasty, negative campaign taking a toll on both men.

The 2008 Obama campaign was keyed to one word — “Hope” — but the President’s battleground state advertising has focused on fear of Romney, and Romney’s business record of allegedly outsourcing jobs overseas.

The body blows appear to be working.

“Both presidential candidates have seen their “very negatives” increase to all-time highs, and Romney’s overall favorable/unfavorable scores remain negative — a trait no other modern presumptive GOP presidential nominee (not Bob Dole, George W. Bush or John McCain) has shared,” wrote Mark Murray, chief political/polling expert for MSNBC.

Obama has a 49-43 percent lead, up very slightly from 47-44 percent last month. He leads by 49-41 percent in “battleground” states where the campaigns have slugged it out on the airwaves. Obama is barely ahead among “high interest” voters.

Obama was in Portland and Seattle on Tuesday, states where he enjoys a comfortable lead in the polls — 9 points according to the latest SurveyUSA survey — raising campaign money that will be spent in those battleground states.

With Romney — in a figure he has to reverse — 35 percent see the Republican nominee-presumptive favorably, 40 percent unfavorably. Twenty-four percent of those surveyed had a “very unfavorable” opinion of the former Massachusetts governor.